The Battle of Samugarh 1658

The Battle of Samugarh, fought on 30 May 1658, was the decisive engagement of the Mughal war of succession of 1657-1659 and the event that determined the political shape of the empire for the next half-century. On a plain near Agra, the prince Aurangzeb, commanding an army drawn from the eastern and southern provinces, defeated the army of his elder brother Dara Shukoh, the heir apparent of the ailing emperor Shah Jahan. The defeat was total: Dara fled the field and was eventually captured and executed, while the captive emperor was confined in Agra Fort for the remainder of his life. The aftermath of the engagement and Aurangzeb’s consolidation of power is treated in greater detail on the Aurangzeb page.

The Succession Crisis of 1657-1659

The crisis of 1657-1659 was precipitated by the illness of Shah Jahan in September 1657. The emperor was 65 years old and had ruled for nearly thirty years; his incapacity threw open the question of succession. Four of his sons were alive in 1657: Dara Shukoh, the eldest and designated heir; Shuja, the governor of Bengal; Aurangzeb, the governor of the Deccan; and Murad Baksh, the governor of Gujarat.

The war of succession that followed was conducted in three principal theatres: in the central Gangetic plain, where Dara Shukoh opposed Aurangzeb and Murad Baksh; in the east, where Shuja contested Aurangzeb’s authority; and in the Deccan, where Aurangzeb and Murad Baksh were initially allied against the other claimants.

The Rival Claimants

The four claimants to the throne represented very different political and cultural tendencies within the Mughal elite. Dara Shukoh, the eldest, was a man of considerable intellectual and religious cultivation; he had been a close associate of the Mughal Sufi establishment, and he was the author of several important works of religious and philosophical synthesis, including the Majma ul-Bahrain and the translation of fifty Upanishads into Persian as the Sirr-i-Akbar. His political standing, however, was undermined by his perceived religious liberalism, by his failure to cultivate the support of the Rajput and Afghan nobility, and by his inability to manage the practical business of command.

Aurangzeb, the third son, had been governor of the Deccan since 1636 and had acquired a reputation as a capable administrator and a successful military commander. He was a man of more conventional religious piety than his elder brother and enjoyed the support of the orthodox religious establishment and of a substantial section of the Turani and Rajput nobility.

The Composition of the Armies

The armies that met at Samugarh were of comparable size, perhaps 50,000 to 60,000 men on each side, although the contemporary chronicles inflate the numbers considerably. Dara’s army included substantial contingents of Rajput cavalry, drawn from the houses of Amber and Marwar, as well as a body of imperial artillery and a number of war elephants. Aurangzeb’s force included contingents of Turani and Afghan cavalry, the household troops of the Deccan, and a substantial body of artillery under the command of experienced gunners.

The Role of Dara’s Military Commanders

Dara’s army at Samugarh included several commanders of considerable ability, including his son Sipihr Shukoh, his general Khalilullah Khan, and the Rajput raja of Amber, Jai Singh. The performance of these commanders in the battle is examined in the principal contemporary sources.

The course of the battle was decisively influenced by the defection of two of Dara’s principal commanders, the Rajput rajas of Amber and Marwar, who, for reasons of their own, withdrew from the field before the engagement was decided. The political background to these defections is examined on the Rajput resistance to Mughal rule and the Mughal court and nobility pages.

The Outcome

The battle was decided in the late morning of 30 May 1658. The withdrawal of the Rajput contingents from Dara’s line created a gap that Aurangzeb’s cavalry exploited with decisive effect. Dara, who had remained in nominal command, was eventually persuaded to leave the field, and the army dissolved in a general rout.

The war of succession was not, however, concluded at Samugarh. Shuja still held Bengal and Bihar, and Murad Baksh was still at large in central India. Aurangzeb’s defeat of Shuja at the Battle of Khajwa 1659 and his suppression of Murad Baksh in 1661 are examined in the related pages.

The Death of Murad Baksh

Murad Baksh, the youngest of the four brothers, had been Aurangzeb’s ally during the opening phase of the succession crisis. He had been granted the Punjab and other territories by Aurangzeb, but the two had soon quarrelled, and Murad had been induced to surrender by a combination of negotiation and force. He was confined in the fortress of Gwalior, where he was executed in 1661 on a charge of murder.

The Imprisonment of Shah Jahan

The immediate consequence of Aurangzeb’s victory at Samugarh was the confinement of Shah Jahan in Agra Fort. The aged emperor was treated with respect, and his material wants were provided for, but he was never again permitted to leave the fort. He died in January 1666, after nearly eight years of captivity, and was buried beside his wife Mumtaz Mahal in the Taj Mahal.

The Consolidation of Aurangzeb’s Rule

The years immediately following Samugarh were among the most politically turbulent of Aurangzeb’s reign. The suppression of the rival claimants, the consolidation of the eastern frontier, and the beginning of the long Deccan campaigns of the 1680s are examined on the Aurangzeb page.

Sources

• Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, vol. III (1916), pp. 43–124.